“You, where are you going?”

JC stopped as the Guards hailed him and held out the thin sheet of paper that his work order was printed on. He’d been stopped five times already and was only halfway to his destination.

“Corner sanitation facility, second floor,” he said.

The Guards examined the paper carefully, looking for any mistake, any reason to send him back to the desk. In the beginning, the clerk had filled out his form wrong on purpose, so the Guards would hassle him at will. JC soon caught on though and the clerk didn’t make any more mistakes.

“Continue,” one of them said, handing JC his work order.

He was stopped six more times on his way to the second floor and three more times on his way to the corner bathroom. His eyes sought one particular desk as he walked by the corner office, but it was empty just now. The computer was on.

JC allowed himself a small smile as he pushed through the bathroom door. He knew he’d see him sometime today.

“Anyone in here?” he called out, hearing his own voice echo back to him from the far corners of the sterile, white room. He remembered saying something, once, about bathrooms and acoustics and singing, back before the war, before Bourge, before Chris…

“Back here,” he heard. Crouching down, he saw two legs in one of the back stalls.

“I need to work on this bathroom.”

“Can I finish here?” The voice wasn’t annoyed, in fact sounded mildly amused.

JC smiled. “Yeah, sure.” He leaned against a sink and crossed his arms over his chest. He stared at the wall directly across from him, at the white expanse offering no respite, no objects for the imagination. The whole world, it seemed, was white, black, or gray. Bourge had done away with colors.

He straightened quickly as the stall door opened. He was supposed to stand straight in the presence of his superiors, and anyone working in this building was his superior.

“At ease,” the other man said, laughing softly.

JC relaxed his stance a little, but didn’t lean on the sink again. He looked over at the other man, smiling a little, and froze. It was him.

He jerked his gaze away when he realized he was staring, that the other man still stood there, slightly uncomfortable under JC’s scrutiny.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

He heard the water in the sink running, then a cool, slightly damp hand touched his. “No, it’s all right. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

JC nodded. “They always send me to do maintenance on this bath- sanitation facility.”

“No, not now. I mean…” he glanced around the bathroom, as if afraid that someone else would hear him. “I mean before,” he finished in a whisper.

“Heard of NSync?” JC asked.

The man’s eyes widened as realization dawned. “Oh, right. You’re the letters… JC?”

JC nodded.

“I can’t be talking… I have to go.”

JC reached out as the man stepped away. “No, please. They can’t… You don’t have to…” he trailed off. “Please, what’s your name?”

“Jared,” the man whispered. “Let me go, they’ll come looking if I’m gone too long.”

JC nodded and let the man go, holding on only to his name, to the brief memory of a cool touch on his hand, the look in his eyes before he closed them and turned away. Jared.

The other workers arrived and he helped them remove the stalls so they could access the pipes in the walls behind the toilets. There were 30 stalls in this facility, and 10 bits of pipe to replace at each one.

He hated the grunt work, hated where he lived, hated the food he was forced to eat and the coffee he was forced to drink. He hated that he was alone and he hated himself because he was jealous of his best friends, his brothers.

He tried not to complain. He knew it wasn’t Lance and Joey’s choice, that they weren’t to blame. He couldn’t blame who he really wanted to anyway.

He stopped when the others did for lunch. They never talked to him, though they talked freely amongst themselves. They knew who he was, what his background was, and the threat of punishment for talking to a former revolutionary was enough that they barely showed him the slightest amount of professional courtesy.

They left promptly at twelve and JC followed them out.

Grunt workers, when on job sites, ate lunch in a small, sterile lunch room off the larger room where office workers ate.

He followed the others into the line. It reminded him of the high school cafeteria in Florida and he let himself drift in memories.

“Number?”

The person behind him jostled him. “Tell her your number.”

JC turned to the lady at the computer terminal. “451624,” he said. She nodded and punched in the number. His tray came out of the slot in the wall and he took it and sat down.

It was on his way back from lunch that he passed Jared in the hallway. JC saw him long before Jared noticed his presence. He was in a small group of people, talking. He laughed once and JC could see the long line of his throat as he leaned his head back, mouth open and teeth gleaming in the harsh light of the hallway.

Jared broke away from the group and JC knew the minute that Jared saw him. The remnants of laughter died from his face, replaced by something else, something like longing.

They couldn’t stop, couldn’t acknowledge each other without retribution. They could only stare and brush slightly against each other as they passed, under the cover of maneuvering around the crowded hallway. Without looking around, JC reached out his hand and found Jared’s, squeezing it slightly before he let it go.

He continued on to the corner bathroom and found the others already there. They were making full use of their 35-minute lunch break though, and hadn’t yet resumed working.

JC had just gone back to his section when he heard a new voice in the bathroom. “Out,” it said, in a growly undertone. He stood when the others did and moved toward the door, but stopped when the Guard grumbled, “not you.”

The Guard waited until the others were out before he flipped the lock on the door.

JC stood straight and tried not to panic. He didn’t know what the Guard had seen, didn’t know if he was just being hassled because of who he was, just didn’t know. So he didn’t say anything until the Guard did.

The Guard turned slowly from the door. “You think we’re not watching?” he asked slowly.

JC allowed himself a moment's regret before he squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing his panic and his fear.

“You think we don’t see?” He took a menacing step forward and JC forced himself to not retreat.

“We watch.” Another step. He was directly in front of JC now.

“We see,” he said, and jabbed a large, meaty fist into JC’s diaphragm. The force of the blow drove the air from JC’s lungs, and he doubled over, hands clutched at his middle, gasping for breath.

He felt the Guard’s hands on both sides of his face, holding him in place. He felt the Guard’s harsh breath on his ear before the whispered words, “we know your type.”

He barely had time to flinch before the Guard’s knee came up into his face, and another blow to his head knocked him to the floor. He curled his legs up, his arms around his head and accepted it, accepted the angry blows before the Guard’s boot caught him in the back of the head and he passed out.